Vitalik Buterin’s Japanese Name, “Pig Forest,” Evokes Comic Reactions: TRON Founder

Ethereum creator Vitalik Buterin has added the Japanese inscription of his name, 豚林 pronounced “bu-tarin,” to his Twitter bio. However, when translated into English, the Japanese inscription literally means “pig forest,” or “dolphin forest” from the Chinese perspective.

Why @VitalikButerin’s Chinese name is 豚林? Sounds strange to me. I have a better name for him 柏林. ❤️

— H.E. Justin Sun ???? (@justinsuntron) June 10, 2022

This has elicited amusing reactions from market participants, like TRON founder Justin Sun, who commented that it sounded strange and jokingly teased a better name for the ETH co-founder, which literally meant a gibberish “Kashiwabayashi” in Japanese and “Berlin” in Chinese.

A scroll through Vitalik Buterin’s Twitter feed suggests what might have prompted the ETH creator to add the Japanese pronunciation of his name, Buterin, to his Twitter bio. Buterin wrote in a recent tweet: “Please stop using ‘real name’ to refer to your passport name. Your government doesn’t get to define who you ‘really’ are. If you use a different name in most day-to-day interactions, that is your real name. ‘Passport name,’ ‘legal name,’ and ‘slave name’ to be edgy are all fine.”

Please stop using “real name” to refer to your passport name. Your government doesn’t get to define who you “really” are. If you use a different name in most day-to-day interactions, that is your real name.

“Passport name”, “legal name”, “slave name” to be edgy are all fine.

— 豚林 vitalik.eth (@VitalikButerin) June 10, 2022

This evoked a hilarious reaction from Twitter followers. One Twitter follower responded, “Fiat name,” while posting a funny GIF image.

Ethereum was founded in 2014 by Vitalik Buterin and several developers, notably Charles Hoskinson (Cardano founder) and Joseph Lubin. Last August, the Ethereum co-founder joined the board of the relaunched Dogecoin Foundation.

Despite co-founding the second largest blockchain and being at the forefront of the cryptocurrency revolution, Buterin routinely faces criticism. Most of his detractors complain about Ethereum’s scalability concerns and frequent delays.

Following an earlier shift in date, ETH developers estimate Ethereum’s full transition to proof of stake to occur later in the year. Ethereum’s Kiln and Ropsten testnets also successfully merged, although a few issues were reported.